Social Behaviour III (Ch 14) Flashcards
1
Q
Aspects of social interaction
A
- exclusion and inclusion
- prejudice and discrimination
- aggression
- helping
- attraction
2
Q
Consequences of perceiving others as different from ourselves
A
- We sometimes evaluate and treat people differently because of the group they belong to
- Our action are based on in-group/out-group distinctions (us vs them)
- It hurts to be excluded from our group
3
Q
In-group/out-group bias
A
-showing positive feelings toward people in our own group and negative feelings toward those in other groups
4
Q
Out-group homogeneity
A
-tendency to see all members of an out-group as the same
5
Q
Study on ethnicity and willingness to associate with out-groups
A
-ratings of perceived similarity were correlated with willingness to affiliate with ethnic out-groups
6
Q
Rejection
A
- one result of human tendency is to include and exclude others is that we can get left out
- rejection hurts
- possibly because our social connections are as important as our physically safety
- brain’s physical pain circuits also evolved to signal when we have been excluded from the group
- when people read friendly messages from people that they feel socially connected to, they feel physically warm and show brain activation patterns that correspond to the areas active during actual physical warmth
7
Q
The social psychology of social networks
A
- networks form among people who share interests
- networks defined by associations among people that brand and spread beyond those people one knows directly
- certain habits can spread in a social network (more commons among members than non members)
- attitudes, behaviours, and habits move through social networks via the 3 degrees rule
8
Q
3 degrees rule
A
- how attitudes, behaviour, and habits moves through social networks
- your behaviour (eg. Food preference) can affect your friends (one degree) and their friends (two degrees) and their friend’s friends (three degrees)
9
Q
Mimicry
A
- process by which we mirror the actions of others, may be one means by which our emotional behaviour can impact another person
- behaviour gets distorted as it moves outward towards others
10
Q
Social Capital
A
- the value or payoff (socially or professionally) one gains by connecting with others
- may be to get reinforcement for their views or images (eg. Receiving likes on Facebook status)
11
Q
Prejudice
A
- a biased attitude toward a group of people or an individual member of a group based on generalizations about what members of that group are like
- often stems from stereotypes rather than from careful observation or behaviour
- prejudices are generally negative and often based on insufficient information
12
Q
Discrimination
A
- refers to negative actions directed towards another based upon that individual’s group membership and is usually the result of prejudicial attitudes
- can also results from institutionalize rules, such as a requirement that firefighters must be a certain higher, which often discriminates against women and some ethnic groups
13
Q
Racism
A
-prejudices based on race-ethnicity
14
Q
Sexism
A
-prejudices based on sex
15
Q
Jane Elliot
A
- a teacher with no psychology training tried an experiment where she divided her class into brown eyes and blue eyes, then assigned one to be superior each day, and one inferior
- superior students treated inferior students poorly, and also found that student performed poorly on tests if they were inferior
- “Even nice Canadians are racist”
16
Q
Conscious and unconscious prejudice
A
- reactions become automatic
- prejudices can operate outside conscious awareness and they sometimes stand in complete contrast to one’s conscious beliefs
- possibly evolutionary basis: the mechanism of recognizing group members may have evolved to preserve group harmony, cohesions and close alliances to enhance the survivability of individuals
17
Q
Study of Implicit Bias
A
- explicit vs implicit prejudice
- explicit: plainly stated
- implicit: indirect views
18
Q
Mahzarin Banaji
A
- studies relationship between implicit and explicit memory
- principle of priming may apply to social cognition in racist thinking
- those who grow up in racist community or household could ingrain certain biases
- may develop attitudes unknowingly
19
Q
Implicit Association Test (IAT)
A
- took European-American and African-American names and paired them with both pleasant and unpleasant words
- faster response times on the test indicate that people more readily associated two concepts; slower response times indicate a less automatic association
- European Americans tend to respond more slowly to pairing of black words or faces with positive words than to negative
- reverse is true for African Americans; they respond more slowly to pairings of white with positive words
20
Q
Nature and nurture of aggression
A
-humans are unique in that they often engage in aggression and violent behaviour when their survival is not an issue
21
Q
Aggression
A
- refers to violent behaviour that is intended to cause psychological or physical harm
- often provoked by anger
- hostile aggression: stemming from anger
- instrumental aggression: as a means to achieve some goals
- when generic factors combine with an abusive and neglectful environment, the likelihood of committing violence increases dramatically
- aggressive tendencies may be influenced by differences in brain functioning
22
Q
Aggression in the brain
A
-several brain areas involves in aggression
-hypothalamus, amygdala, prefrontal cortex
-area of prefrontal cortex responsible for impulse control often is functionally impaired in aggressive and violent people
-amygdala damage is found frequently in murderers
-murderers may have prefrontal cortex issues or reductions in size of hippocampus
-
23
Q
Chemical messengers and aggression
A
-serotonin and testosterone
-serotonin often keeps anger and anxiety in check so low levels result in aggression
-relatively high levels of testosterone correlate positively with a propensity to violence
-testosterone levels of prisoners were higher in those convicted of violent crimes
-
24
Q
Aggression and gender
A
- males often more physically violent than females
- women more likely to use non-physical forms of aggression
- within relationships women show higher levels of physical aggression toward their partners
25
Social influence on aggression
- situations that frustrate us and prevent us from reaching our goals are likely to make us aggressive
- the closer we are to our goal when we become frustrated the more aggressive we are
- observing aggressive people and the consequences of their actions can make us more aggressive
- being exposed to violent shows increases violence if those children already have aggressive personalities, those without are less affected
- contrasting theory that repeatedly being exposed to violence desensitizes us to it
26
Prosocial behaviour
- behaviour that benefits others
| - altruism, empathy, and cooperation
27
Bystander effect
- the greater the number of bystanders who witness and emergency, the less likely any one of them will help
- diffusion of responsibility:when there are many people around, an individual's responsibility to act seems decreased
- when people are in a hurry they are less likely to notice the event
- when more people are present, a person is less likely to interpret an event as an emergency
- cost-benefit analysis sometimes persuades individuals to not help
28
Altruism
- selfless concern for and giving of aid to others
- altruists often expose themselves to greater danger than those who selfishly protect themselves, helping poses risks to personal survival
- two explanations for altruism: kin selection and reciprocal altruism
29
Kin selection
-evolutionary mechanism that prompts individuals to help their close relative or kin so that they will survive to reproduce and pass on related genes to their offspring
-more common in social animals like bees
-people are more likely to help a relative in a life or death situation but not in a not life or death situation
-
30
Reciprocal altruism
- helping others in the hope that they will help you in the future
- it is easier for humans to survive when group members cooperate, and reciprocal altruism promotes such cooperation
31
Social exchange theory
- maximize our gains, minimize our losses
- non-evolutionary explanation of altruistic behaviour that says we help other because such behaviour can be rewarding, but we will help only if the rewards outweigh the costs
- by this theory, truly selfless altruism does not exist
32
Empathy
- sharing feelings and understanding about another persons situation
- insula and anterior cingulate cortex are key neural structures involved in empathy
33
empathy-altruism hypothesis
- people will offer selfless help only when they truly empathize with the victim
- 2 possible motivations:
1. Egoistic motivation
2. Empathetic motivation
34
Egoistic motivation
- helping someone to relieve your own distress
| - fits in with social exchange theory
35
Empathic motivation
- altruistic desire to reduce the distress of the person in need
- primary goal of helping through a crisis
36
Cooperation
- occurs when two or more people or groups of people come together, working interdependently toward a common goal that will benefit everyone
- researchers often study cooperation by using social dilemmas (situations in which the goal of the individual conflict with the goals of the group)
37
Social dilemmas
- situations in which the goals of the individual conflict with the goals of the group
- 2 key aspects to all social dilemmas:
1. Each individual benefits most from engaging in a non-cooperative behaviour
2. Together, as a group, all individuals are better off if they engage in a cooperative behaviour than if they dont
- examples: overpopulation, global warming, and depletion of natural resources
38
Prisoner's Dilemma
- you and a friend commit a serious crime and are caught by the police.
- there are 4 outcomes:
1. You confess and your partner doesnt, you go free they get 10 years
2. Vice versa
3. Neither of you confess and you both get lesser sentence
4. Both confess and each get 5 years
- best option for you is to rat out your friends (non-cooperative strategy)
- run risk that friend will also confess
- choice that will guarantee best out come for both is cooperative one where neither of you confess
- when groups play this game there is a tendency to respond non-cooperatively
- allowing communications between players enhances cooperation
- renamed as "community game" changes responses to be twice more cooperative
39
Familiarity, Similarity and Attraction
- sometimes we like ideas or objects simply because they are familiar to us
- study showed that a brief interaction with another person increased liking between uni students
- the more frequent the interactions, the more the participants liked each other
- people with similar ideas, values, and interests are more likely to like one another
- how much we think people like us also affects how much we like them (reciprocal liking)
40
Physical attractiveness
- humans worldwide value physical attractiveness in partners
- people rate average and symmetrical faces as more attractive
- the more faces that are morphed together, the more average they become... ie more attractive
- symmetrical faces and bodies are signs of fewer genetic mutations
41
Sexual strategies theory
- suggests that men and women often approach relationships differently
- in all societies, men and women engage in both short-term mating and long-term matings
- sex differences in attraction arise because parental investment is greater for women than for men, so men devote a larger proportion of their total mating effort to short-term mating than do women
- men value qualities that may signal fertility and accessibility (large breasts, wide hips) whereas women value men who can provide resources to their offspring. This is less common in looking for short term mating
42
Triangular theory of love
- Robert Sternberg
- love has 3 components: intimacy, passion and commitment
- intimacy: refers to close, connected and bonded feelings in loving relationships
- passion: the drives that lead to romance, physical attraction, and sexual consumption and is accompanied by physiological changes and arousal
- commitment: both the decision to love someone or not, and the decision to commit to love for the long term
43
Love as attachment
- affection based bond between infants and caregivers
- by categorizing people's infant-caregiver attachment style based on an adult attachment interview, they found that securely attached adults report that they easily get close to others, readily trust others, and have more satisfying romantic relationships
- anxious resistant adults tend to have less satisfied relationships and more preoccupied with them and fear that their partners do not want the intimacy they desire
- avoidant adults are uncomfortable being close to others and have less satisfying relationships
44
Adult attachment styles
- categorized along 2 dimensions: self-image and image of others
- ie. categorized based upon the extent that they feel worthy of love and the degree to which they believe others will provide love and support
- yields 4 distinct attachment styles:
1. Secure: positive image of self and others... have satisfying romantic relationships
2. Preoccupied: negative self image, positive view of others... tend to rely on others evaluations of self worth... characterized by high levels of emotional expressiveness ... eg cry more
3. Dismissing: positive self image, negative image of others. Correlates with low intimacy and self-disclosure in romantic relationships
4. Fearful: negative self image and image of others. Avoid intimacy and do not disclose readily to others. Low self confidence
45
Jonestown cult
- mass suicide by lacing drinking water with poison... over 900 died
- cult: an extremist group led by a charismatic totalitarian leading in which coercive methods are used to prevent members from leaving the group
- 4 principles (persuasion, conformity, obedience and cognitive dissonance) can explain the tragedy of Jonestown
- jones limited the information available to members
- used threats to impose the discipline and devotion he demanded and took steps to eliminate any behaviour that might encourage resistance
- created conditions in which kin selection could not promote helping between members
